The Arrivals board is an index of the world,
the place names, for the most, dimensionless:
Who can conjure up a skyline of Taipei
or Washington DC from that bleak board format?
And when they stream in through the gate, into
our midst, these ciphers of their cities, lost
and finding, the smiles and hugs from kith and kin
reducing them to people of our own, our city,
our prejudices about keeping to your own
are signally disported: be as human as you are
within whose confines, whose protective shell
tends to fend off the others in the bustle.
In the breach of 'Excuse me, please' - smile -
the leak of amniotic fluid in which we swim,
whose self-healing walls seal off individuals,
families, nationalities, called by name.
